Steve Grieme, one of the best malaphor spotters around, heard a beauty on CNN last week. A guy was videotaping some of the raging wildfires in Southern California. In response to a reporter’s question about people fleeing from their homes, he said, “Fight of flight. You had to figure out what you were going to do on a dimes notice”. This is a congruent conflation of “moment’s notice” and “be prepared to turn on a dime”, both meaning to act quickly. Thanks Steve!

And of course they are all unintentional. My theory is that we continue to add cliches and idioms to the english language and it seems we talk more in cliches these days. And of course the population is aging. This is a recipe for confusion.

I’m from So Cal and I use this too. It’s a part of our vernacular out here. Stop hating on the Californian race. It does have some logic to it, as if you flip a dime, it’s libel to spin much more quickly than it’s larger pecuniary counterparts. Hence, ‘a dime’s notice’. We may be as bad as blondes out here, but at least we [actually, that’s all I can think of] :(…..

I forgot to add, even though a dime is inanimate, such analogies still exist in the English language. For example, ‘hair trigger’, the concept being there that it would respond to the movement equivalent of a hair’s breadth. So we do have SOME precedent for ‘dime’s notice’ down here.